Texas Transit Association

on its transit buses.

By Daniel Perry
Monitor Staff Writer
The Monitor (McAllen) October 26, 2003

McALLEN — Local officials are trying to come up with ways to make up the money lost from decreasing federal contributions to the city’s public transit system.
So far, the only idea has come from Elizabeth Suarez, the city’s transit director. Her proposal to put advertising on McAllen Express vehicles and inside Central Station has already received initial support from city commissioners.
She estimates the plan would generate about $100,000 a year in revenue.
“Sometimes it (advertising) is not aesthetically pleasing,” Suarez said. “It causes clutter. We want to keep it as clean as possible.”
In the next couple of months, the city will begin seeking bids from advertising firms who can connect to Hispanic-owned businesses on both sides of the border, Suarez said.
Public transportation and advertising make a good combination. Salma Ghanem, an associate professor of public relations and advertising and head of the communications department at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, said the practice is common in urban areas.
Some advertising firms have put their focus specifically on finding Hispanic economic opportunities. Some businesses have used Hispanic characters to relay their messages to customers.
“That is a market that a lot of advertisers are grappling with,” Ghanem said. “The Hispanic market has become a very lucrative market to advertise to.”
The idea comes because money has been a challenge the last few years for the transportation system and the bus station.
The city will give the McAllen Express, the city-owned public transportation system, $409,000 for the 2003-2004 fiscal year, City Manager Mike R. Perez said. Central Station, the city’s multi-bus carrier terminal on U.S. Business 83, will receive $242,201. The city also will buy three new buses likely to cost $192,000.
Perez said past combined subsidies have been as low as $250,000 to $500,000. McAllen Express began in 1997 and the bus terminal opened in 2001.
“There are only a few public transportation systems that break even in this country that are run by governments,” Perez said.
Several public transit systems exist because of help from the Federal Transit Administration in Washington, D.C. The city is qualified to receive Urbanized Area Formula money for cities having between 50,000 to 199,999 in population. The money can be used for projects such as overhauling and rebuilding buses, crime prevention and building transportation facilities, according to FTA information.
Federal budget cuts have altered the formula for money distribution, said Suarez said.
The city commission’s goal is to decrease the burden the city transit system and bus station are putting on the general fund, Perez said. The total expenditures for the bus terminal are $544,615 for fiscal year 2003-2004. The total expenditures for McAllen Express are $857,350 for the fiscal year, according to city budget information.
The bus terminal’s revenue is projected at $327,236, Suarez said. Besides the city’s allotment, other funding sources are rental agreements, pay telephones and concession agreements.
McAllen Express’s revenue is projected at $448,110. Making up the amount with the city’s contribution is its federal transportation subsidy and collected fares.
Suarez’s idea stems from how McAllen-Miller International Airport handles advertising.
The airport uses a local agency to seek out possible advertisers, said Derald Lary, the airport’s aviation director. A variety of hospitals, banks, economic development corporations, hotels and jewelry stores buy spaces in the baggage and screening areas. The businesses must be useful to travelers and meet the airport’s style and lighting guidelines.
The airport receives about $90,000 in revenue a year from the venture, Lary said.
Advertising has already worked for one transit system in the Rio Grande Valley.
The Brownsville Urban System reached out to its predominately Hispanic customer base with advertising at bus stops and on buses. The Brownsville-Harlingen-San Benito MSA has an estimated 298,000 Hispanics, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey Profile 2002. The system transports about 54,000 paratransit passengers and 1.6 million fixed-route riders yearly.
The system receives about $1,500 in monthly revenue from bus stop advertising, director Norma Zamora said. The system works with an advertising firm to find businesses, which it has done for four years.
The amount of revenue generated from buses was unavailable. An employee seeks out advertising opportunities for the buses but has other job duties. This effort started about five years ago.
The system operates 12 vans for the disabled and 29 fixed-route buses. Zamora said more advertisers are interested in touting themselves on the fixed-route vehicles because of their size. The vans have larger windows but less room for advertising.
“You get the attention of a lot more people on a bus,” Zamora said. “It is constantly moving throughout the community. It just depends on what target the firms or whoever the advertisers are trying to get at.”
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Daniel Perry covers McAllen, Hidalgo and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4454.